FBI Demands Logs From Radical Website 884
sunbird writes "The details are as yet unclear due to a gag order, but apparently the FBI is once again demanding IP logs from dissident webservers. The sysadmin for flag.blackened.net, best known for hosting infoshop.org and the Anarchist FAQ has responded to an FBI request for server logs. Although he cannot reveal the details of the request due to the gag order, the sysadmin has issued an informal press release discussing his reasons for turning over the information. Slashdot articles on similar topics: (1) (2) (3)"
Mmmm.. Dynamic (Score:2, Interesting)
1. So happy I live in Canada. It could be almost anywhere that isn't the US though. The rampant paranoia there is baffling.
2. So happy I'm on a dynamic IP pool. You want my address? Have it. I'll just cycle mine if I'm ever worried.
To me it looks like he's playing for publicity (Score:5, Interesting)
"Freedom of speech does not exist, don't try to test it. They will come bust down your door - for real - point a gun to your head and pull the trigger if you refuse to comply."
No, actually, they won't. In a case like this they'll send you a subpoena asking for the infromation they want. If you fail to respond, the court will issue an order for your arrest, and a warrant allowing them to sieze the comptuers that should have the logs. When they come to arrest you, you won't get shot unless you do something stupid, like threaten them with a weapon. They'll just cuff you, read you your rights, and then gather what they came to get.
However, as you stated, he could have avoided the whole thing by just not keeping logs. I've run more than one server that doesn't keep logs, not for secrecy, but because it lacked a lot of storage and it just wasn't imporant to log what kind of access happened.
One man's +5 funny... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Freedom of speech does not exist, don't try to test it. They will come bust down your door - for real - point a gun to your head and pull the trigger if you refuse to comply."
For some reason, I think there is more truth there than most of us would like to believe or admit.
Black Flag (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a friend who worked undercover investigating racist groups and he said he would look around the room and try to figure out who was connected to which agency. For all they knew, they ALL were cops.
Re:Aww geez (Score:1, Interesting)
Ever heard of Ruby [wikipedia.org] Ridge [crimelibrary.com]?
I'd say comparing certain certain arms of the government to the Gestapo is legit.
Re:Choice bits from the "press release" (Score:1, Interesting)
Way to go David. Thanks! Maybe some clueful moderator will bring you back down to where you belong for this crap: -1 Redundant.
Re:/dev/null (Score:3, Interesting)
I just can't understand why someone running what is apparently a popular site would ever keep logs for more than a very short amount of time?
Along the same lines, have you noticed that most companies now have an explicit official policy on information and records retention? Old emails will be deleted after 30 days, 1 year, etc.
The obvious reason is to avoid legal liability (Microsoft's emails) and embarrassment (Monica Lewinsky).
[Regarding this particular case: if the FBI is on a bona fide investigation of criminal activity and the courts have issued an order directing compliance with the investigation and this is NOT some post "Patriot Act" "sneak-n-peak" fishing expedition action exempt from judicial oversight then go ahead and provide law enforcement with what specific information they need and nothing else.]
Automatic log deletion on FBI caller-id (Score:3, Interesting)
I was thinking that an extra measure of protection would be to add a script to automatically delete all logs as soon as any FBI phone number appears in the caller-id of an incoming phone call. The application could use a black(-ops;)-list of known phone numbers, exchanges and id strings for lawyers, organizations or agencies that are privacy challenged to check against for automatic deletion... hey, they keep black lists, why shouldn't privacy threatened groups?
The key question is, however, whether such a thing would be legal or interpreted as obstruction of justice? Having a policy of frequent deletion as a means of limiting exposure to privacy challenges doesn't seem to be a problem, but my proposed script might be. It might be possible to argue that before an actual request is received that preemptive deletion is not any different than frequent deletion. INAL, so I don't know, but it might be interesting to see what the courts think.
Re:Choice bits from the "press release" (Score:5, Interesting)
This guy doesn't seem very smart.
1. He stupidly keeps logs
2. He caves under a subpeana
3. And then to cover his ass he plays "the spooks are going to kill me if I don't co-operate card."
What good are you to your cause if you aren't willing to risk incarceration or bodily harm for it? Anyone who tries to change the way of the world ends up dead, he should have kept his mouth shut if he wasn't willing to risk that.
If I were one of his comrades I'd be very pissed at him.
Re:Press Release (Score:5, Interesting)
So, what you really mean is that while you preach a damn good sermon, you're really sleeping with the devil, and the choir can go to hell for all you care.
Re:Black Flag (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Aww geez (Score:4, Interesting)
In addition, the trains would run on time, there would be no homeless (these would be in labor camps), and we would be standing in line to buy toilet paper.
I suppose anarchists are like canarys in coal mines: as long as you hear them twittering and flapping around in their self-imposed cages, freedom of speech is safe.
Re:Aww geez (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Automatic log deletion on FBI caller-id (Score:2, Interesting)
#!/usr/bin/perl
if (@ARGV < 2)
{
print "Two arguments needed: INFILE OUTFILE\n\n";
exit;
}
open INFILE, "<$ARGV[0]" || die "Couldn't open $ARGV[0] for reading!\n";
open OUTFILE, ">$ARGV[1]" || die "Couldn't open $ARGV[1] for writing!\n";
@xor_ip = (int(rand 256), int(rand 256), int(rand 256), int(rand 256));
while (<INFILE>)
{
if ( $_ =~
{
@octets = $_ =~
$new_octets = ($octets[0] ^ $xor_ip[0]).".".($octets[1] ^ $xor_ip[1]).".".($octets[2] ^ $xor_ip[2]).".".($octets[3] ^ $xor_ip[3]);
$old_octets = $octets[0]
$_ =~ s/$old_octets/$new_octets/;
}
print OUTFILE $_;
}
Re:To me it looks like he's playing for publicity (Score:5, Interesting)
The FBI are aware that computer records aren't kept forever in many cases, and the reality of retention. Just don't lie to them about how long you keep logs or delete them after they ask for them, because then you get the Martha Steward "guilty of lying during investigation" conviction.
I think that anyone doing anything in public, and internet sites are in public, should expect that law enforcement can and eventually will pay attention if they're doing stuff which might be illegal. So either don't do it in the first place or don't talk about it online AT ALL. If you do, don't be suprised if someone snitches and the logs are collected and you get busted. Duh. Don't talk about it in bars or with strangers on the bus either.
Re:Black Flag (Score:5, Interesting)
He also doesn't sound much like an anarchist when he speaks like he does. If I were part of the community he supported I would be terribly disappointed in his actions:
I'm under court order not to speak about specifics and have my attorney trying to find out what the maximum penalty for disclosure really is. I hate to have to keep my mouth shut in areas where the Gestapo is involved, but I also have to weigh things against the overall security of flag and it's subdomains and also the wellbeing of my family.
So he believes in working within a system he doesn't believe should exist? While I understand that anarchists can have moral beliefs I just can't imagine that he would be so tolerant of the way the system is built to just put up with it.
I have called numerous friends nationwide, anarchists and otherwise whose opinions I respect and who I know will be honest and forthwith in their opinions to ask them how I should proceed. The unanimous consensus is that I comply with the wishes of the FBI and provide the IP addresses responsible. The only point of discussion, really, has been whether or not I should reveal the specific information in violation of two court orders.
Oh come on, maybe Dave is a wimpy anarchist but the rest of them too? Perhaps even the extreme leftists are swinging away from their roots and becoming more moderate.
They are proven murderers and automatons for the state who will blindly follow any order to kill or disrupt without question.
And yet he runs a site that harbors anarchists and he is doing everything the FBI says? Who's the automaton that is blindly following orders from a government agency which he believes should not exist?
It is by far the most agonizing decision I've been faced with in relation to my anarchist opinions.
"opinions", quite an interesting word choice. I would expect an individual running a site that harbors some subdomains that are being investigated by the FBI would hold more than just "opinions".
There is no "mess." (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Press Release (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Press Release (Score:3, Interesting)
Why for FFS did you keep logs in the first place?
And why for the love of all that is good and right were your users coming from traceable IPs?
Re:/dev/null (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Press Release (Score:5, Interesting)
If someone were to rob me at gunpoint, and I choose to comply and give them my money rather than have my brains scrambled by a bullet, does that mean I'm "sleeping with the devil"? Should I instead make some sort of principled stand about my right to not be robbed?
Hell no. Any competent and sane self-defense instructor will tell you to give the nice man with the gun your wallet. Same principle applies whether the thug with the gun has a badge or not.
We all have to make choices about what's worth risking life and freedom fighting for and what's not. Like your pocket cash, server logs fall into the later category.
Re:Press Release (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a big protest at my university during my time there, and during the course of the protest, they blocked a major throughfare to all traffic for an extended period.
It goes without saying this wasn't a liscensed protest.
Turns out there was an ambulance tied up in the traffic jam, and all the ringleaders of the protest got charged with felony obstruction of emergency vehicles.
They went from revolutionaries to crying children in the blink of an eye. The charges were upheld, and they were all convicted. Sentences were light, but a felony on your record isn't pretty.
If you play the game, you have to accept the consequences. And they can be nasty.
People like this... (Score:2, Interesting)
Basic to the very concept of good and evil is that we have free will to choose our actions and paths through life and only by this can anything be judged one way or another. That which is compulsory as with a machine has no evil or goodness to it. It just is. Like a nearby star going nova and wiping out all life on Earth. Act of nature, G-d, whatever.
These so-called radicals always want to throw stones at the government and big business and so on and apply the term "evil" but they never take any responsibility for what they do, only credit. Free will doesn't work that way. Your actions have consequences and speech requires action to convey it.
Generally, most speech doesn't have reprocussions of an immediately actionable criminal or civil nature, but sometimes it does. Like telling someone to go some place to set them up to be murdered, or agreeing not to disclose classified documents and then doing so, or what have you.
He and his fellow poseurs lack the courage of their supposed convictions.
Anarchists = Canaries? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a troll (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Press Release (Score:3, Interesting)
::rolls eyes:: Dude, that's just -- embarrassing. Really. You're not that important. Ironically, he then goes on to say...
Resist the extra y-chromosome influenced urge to sound more hardcore than the guy next to you. Nobody is impressed and the powers that be are sitting on the edges of their seats waiting for an excuse to shut down flag.
Indeed. You don't sound hardcore, you sound like a pathetic loser in this diatribe.
Re:/dev/null (Score:3, Interesting)
I regularly run into trouble with this with our sales/marketing people. I have to convince them that we should collect and store no more information than we have to. If you have information you don't need lying around, then you become a liability to anyone who may depend on that information being secure. You become a weak link and a tempting target because you're less likely to be vigilant about securing information that's not of value to you.
I'm quite astounded that the admin of such a website hadn't considered such things.
but compared to certain african dictatorships... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No it's not that (Score:4, Interesting)
The good old USA has been busy changing
OP (other people's) governments they don't
like for at least a century. Ideology is
sometimes the impetus, but often it is
nationalist commercial interests, be it
a threat to "nationalize" bananna plantations,
building canals across Central America,
keeping a competing foreign power out of
the hemispere, or trying to control who is
selling whatever (oil) resource to some other
country/commercial interest.
Only this time around, a foreign power (SA) has
interceded in the affairs of the United States,
to the benefit of a specific (current regime)
interest group. The tipping point was 9-11-2001.
Without that tragic event, the current regime
would never have had their political agenda
succeed, and Dubya would have been yet another
no-name one term president. Instead, we have
the current situation, which can best be described
as a quasi-police state, reinforced by government
propaganda at every level of media access.
Iraq's non-existent WMD was a "crisis", tax cuts
and tax reform welfare for corporations was a
"crisis", lack of wage competition with third
world countries was a "crisis", and now Social
Security is a "crisis". Terrorism is a "crisis",
except when it comes to protecting our borders,
seaports, and air cargo, at which point, wage
competition with 3rd world countries takes
precedence, and cheap imported goods takes
a precedence. North Korean nuclear-tipped
ballistic missles are a "crisis" (hence our new
non-working Star Wars program), but smuggling
a dirty bomb/nuke into the country by terrorists
is not a "crisis", hence, we still have open
borders (for all that cheap imported labor.
The moment that Dubya spoke out about his amnesty
program for the 28 million illegal aliens in this
country, and then about paying social security
benefits to illegal aliens, and resistance to
better border security, I knew beyond a shadow
of a doubt that the entire issue about terrorists
and terror "threat levels" and our reasons for
the preemptive war in Iraq were all bullshit.
Just like the "non-crisis" in Medicare brought
about by the Prescription Drug Plan, versus the
"crisis" in Social Security, which will be bank-
rupted at an even faster rate with Dubya's "plan".
The revolution is already here, the neo-cons
already won the revolution, and it is only a
matter of how the "spoils of war" are divided
up amongst the "friends of the revolution". The
era of populist democracy is over, and the era
of Corporate National Socialism has arrived.
"rm -rf *" isn't good enough, and it's way too
late for ">
in amongst the hard disks would have been an
answer. It certainly would buy a longish stay
at Camp X-Ray (but that sure beats a one-way
ticket on an Argentine military aircraft over
the south Atlantic).
LATEST UPDATE from the folks involved (Score:2, Interesting)
This came out literally three minutes ago over a listserv for radical tech folks:
"While I can't comment on the specifics of these cases, I'm sure that quite of few of you will go "Doh!" when the details come out.
The problem here isn't logs. The problem is forum and weblog software that stores IP addresses. In other words, PostNuke, phpBB, Geeklog and other need a system to delete IP addresses from the MySQL db on a regular basis. If this is even desirable."
Someone else immediately replied with, "If they're stored in a database, a daily/hourly/whatever SQL query to zero the field should suffice"
So there you have it. Not the box admin's fault, but the folks putting in their blog software to move content. Feel free to argue about whether THOSE folks should know better.
What's the law say about keeping logs? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Soviet Union collapsed (Score:3, Interesting)
Few sane people argue that Bush is another Mao - but many sane people and students of history argue that the laws and processes being brought into place under Bush (and some previous presidents) make it considerably easier to start down that path - and are arguably of no benefit to citizens.
Re:/dev/null (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually a fundermental rule of government is that it will always try to bend it's own rules or seek loopholes in them.
The first thing you need to realize is that the people who created our government were smarter than you are.
The people who set up the US government saw little wrong with a government being overthrown. After all that is what they had just done.
They concocted a system of government that works under all conditions, past or present. Our system of government has never yet failed.
The US Congress having a greater proportion of criminals than the general population is not a failure?